1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates generally to computer documents and, specifically, to providing users with additional functionality for telephone numbers and context information surrounding telephone numbers found in computer documents.
2. Description of the Related Art
Although computers (i.e., devices that compute) date back to the abacus in Ancient China and Babylonia, it has only been in the last century that the term “computer” has developed its modern definition as a machine that accepts data and manipulates it to produce a result based on a program (sequence of instructions). In recent years, as technological growth and innovations rapidly bring new devices and appliances to the world, the technology of computing has become more and more vitally connected to the world's economy and people's daily life, as seen in the evolving form and mutations of the computer: from PDAs, notebooks, personal computers, minicomputers, LAN/Internet servers, and mainframes to cell phones and embedded processors in household appliances, car components, pets, furniture, etc. Today's computer can be any electronic, magnetic, optical, or software device for processing data, and such data processing can take the form of logical, arithmetic, memory, and/or storage functions.
As the computer has evolved in the last century, so have the data objects which the computer manipulates. In this application, such data objects will be referred to as “computer documents”. Computer documents include, for example, word processing files (such as an MS Word document), markup language documents (such as HTML or XML files), database records, graphics/image files, and audio/video files.
Furthermore, the technology of computing and the technology of communication has been going through a process of merging—a process in which the distinctions between the technologies of the telephone, the television, the personal computer, the Internet, and the cellular phone are increasingly blurred, if not meaningless. The functionalities of what were once separate devices are now freely shared between and among devices. One's cellular phone can surf the Internet, while one's personal computer (PC) can make telephone calls.
In U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/697,468 (“the '468 application”), from which the present application claims priority, the present inventor disclosed a method by which web browsers are provided with the capability and GUI functionality to act upon and use telephone numbers which appear on web pages. While a web page is being downloaded, it is parsed to determine whether there are any telephone numbers present on the web page, and all found instances of telephone numbers are highlighted when the web page was rendered, thereby bringing the telephone numbers to the user's attention, and indicating the additional functionality available for those highlighted numbers. In the specific implementation described in the '468 application, the user could left-click a highlighted telephone number to call the number using telephone connection software such as Avaya's IP-phone. If right-clicked, an option menu would appear, allowing the user to select one of a group of actions to perform on the telephone number (such as saving the telephone number in memory, or forwarding it to an address book or another user, etc.).
The '468 application was directed to markup language documents, i.e., computer files that are rendered, accessed, and/or manipulated by a markup language document browser. However, such a telephone number capability and GUI functionality is desirable for all types of computer documents, not merely markup language documents. For example, when reading an e-mail or a word processing document, or reviewing a spreadsheet, the capability and GUI functionality of recognizing, highlighting, and acting upon any instances of telephone numbers would be both practical and useful for the user.
It would also be useful if the telephone number could be saved, for future use. In this case, it would also be useful if the telephone number could be saved with some information to give context to the telephone number, such as a name or other identification associated with the telephone number, to enhance the value of the telephone number itself.